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Monthly Archives: November 2011
NSF let us know we’re part of the 99%
Furthermore, this lack of funding did not change the probability that there will be Dictyostelium discoideum in the soil and deer poop samples, though it may ultimately change our ability to analyze them. … If there isn’t much money, and we can’t do much about it, what money there is should be doled out in fair and transparent ways. Continue reading
Use low magnification for writing, high for editing
But once you are happy with the structure, once you think your piece says what you want it to say, communicates what you want it to communicate, then you need to look at the details. … Once that is done, I want to polish every sentence, so I change the magnification of my Word document and let every error shriek. 
At this size, there are things I would change. Continue reading
How do we know how to teach?
It tries to get at whether students can identify a valid scientific argument, whether they can do a good search of the literature, whether they understand experimental design, and whether they can recognize bias. … Without a valid instrument to test my methods, I can’t really say. 
Erica Harris and Boahemaa Adu-Oppong are likely to have learned a lot in our research lab. 
A great group of Rice undergrads from the last time I taught animal behavior, abut the 30th time. Continue reading
Posted in The joy of teaching
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Research creativity and the importance of vacations
Meetings, teaching, preparing for teaching, reading, lab meeting, journal club, a few minutes for paper writing, data analysis, even a quick peek through a microscope, and maybe a few seconds for lunch with your group take up all the time. … It can help you jettison a hard, time-consuming technique when a newer one comes along, even if the new one requires some activation energy and someone in the group has invested a lot in the old one. Continue reading
